• A median-income African American-headed family of four (earning around $53,000) could see its income taxes rise by $2,200.
• 99 percent of African American families who make less than $250,000 a year would not see an income tax increase under the President’s plan.
o In addition, roughly 2.0 million working African American families and roughly 3.4 million African American children would continue to benefit from the President’s improvements to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
• An upper-middle-income African American married couple with a 15-year-old at home and a 19-year-old in her second year at a public university; the couple’s income is $120,000.
• A single African-American mother with three young children, ages 11 months to 6 years, working full-time at minimum wage ($14,500 annual income).
Meanwhile, Obama visited a family in Northern Virginia Thursday to hear about what it would mean if their income taxes went up in 2013. The administration asked families to share their concerns with the administration.
“Tiffany, who is a high school teacher, responded. Her husband, Richard, works at a Toyota dealership,” Obama said. “They actually live with Tiffany’s parents, both of whom are still working. And so what Tiffany pointed out was that an increase of $2,000 or so for her and her husband in this household would actually mean $4,000 that was lost. And a couple of thousand dollars means a couple months’ rent for this family.”
“For them to be burdened unnecessarily because Democrats and Republicans aren’t coming together to solve this problem gives you a sense of the costs involved in very personal terms,” the president said. “So the message that I got from Tiffany and the message that I think we all want to send to members of Congress is this is a solvable problem.”
“That’s the right thing to do for our economy,” Obama added. “It’s the right thing to do for families like Tiffany’s and Richard’s. And it’s very important that we get this done now, that we don’t wait. We’re in the midst of the Christmas season; I think the American people are counting on this getting solved.”
(Photo: AP)
Fiscal Cliff is Devastating for Blacks was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
